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Re: sending a letter to multiple people

First of all, unless I were writing to knights and brothel proprietors, I'd say "Dear Council Members:"

Lol.

"Dear Sirs" is the correct formal opening when addressing a whole department, company etc when the exact person is neither known nor relevant. As in many instances, when the gender of the group is unknown, the masculine is used.

Re: sending a letter to multiple people

Originally Posted by thod00

"Dear Sirs" is the correct formal opening when addressing a whole department, company etc when the exact person is neither known nor relevant. As in many instances, when the gender of the group is unknown, the masculine is used.

I can't agree with this at all.

Are you sending individual copies to each person? If you're going through the trouble of creating all those copies, why don't you just but each person's name in the salutation?

Re: sending a letter to multiple people

Sorry to revive this old posting, but I had a relevant question. Let's say I am sending a letter to my plumber telling him I'm not happy with the work he did for me a month ago. I also want to send a copy of the letter to the Better Business Bureau. Based on the above posts the letter should look like:

<my address>

<date>

<plumber's address>

....

cc: Better Business Bureau

Now, I'm wondering how the letter to the Better Business Bureau should look like. Do I need to substitute the plumber's address with that of the Better Business Bureau?

Re: sending a letter to multiple people

No, you just take a copy of the exact same letter you sent the plumber, (if you want, you can run a highlighter through the cc: line), and mail it to the BBB.

(As a side note, generally the BBB only wants to hear from you if you've made an attempt to receive satisfaction and you were unsuccessful. If this is the first time you've let the plumber know that you're unhappy and he still has the chance to fix it, then it's too soon to copy the BBB. On the other hand, if this is the "I've alerted you previously and you have ignored me" second letter, then copying the BBB is a good move. It's overkill to copy them on the first contact, though.)

Re: sending a letter to multiple people

Address a letter to ONE person, even if you have to write Dear Colleague or Dear Friend. I must say that writing Dear Friend is still a cop-out. If you know who these people are, take the time to send a personalised letter; if not, perhaps sending the communication in memo form would be better received.